BOULDER, Colo. — Deion Sanders was diagnosed with a “high-risk” form of bladder cancer earlier this year, and is now cancer-free after having his bladder removed, he and his doctors revealed Monday.
Coach Prime and his medical team spoke publicly for the first time about the medical condition that had kept him away from the Colorado Buffaloes football program this summer.
Sanders’s doctors discovered the cancer when he went in for a yearly checkup he does routinely for a lengthy history of vascular issues. His primary care doctor referred him to a urologist, who diagnosed Sanders with a bladder tumor.
“It was very high-grade, invading through the bladder wall – not into the muscle layer – something we call very high-risk, non-muscle invasive bladder cancer,” Dr. Janet Kukreja, Director of Urological Oncology at UCHealth said Monday.
Doctors performed a full laparoscopic removal and created a new bladder, and Sanders is now cancer-free. Alternative treatment in the bladder would have come with a high likelihood of recurrence, Kukreja said, and the prognosis would have been bleak had the cancer spread to his muscles.
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Hear Sanders's full remarks in the video player below:
Sanders said he didn't tell his kids about his diagnosis, which he received during CU's spring practice season and as his sons – Shilo and Shedeur – were preparing to learn their NFL futures.
His doctors said the day-to-day becomes “a new way of life” for patients of this surgery, but that his outlook is “very good” and treatment should include only routine scans.
Sanders used his difficult diagnosis to give an emotional plea to others to get regular health checkups.
“If it wasn't for me getting tested for something else, they wouldn't have stumbled up on this. And make sure you go to get the right care. Because without wonderful people like this, I probably wouldn't be sitting here today, because it grew so expeditiously,” he said. “Please get yourself checked out, especially African American men. We don't like going to the doctors. We don't like nothing to do with the doctor. You know that. [But] I'm not just talking to the brothers. I'm talking to my Caucasian brothers, my Hispanic brothers, my Asian brothers, my everybody, and my sisters. And that's all. Y'all get checked out. Because [this] could have been a whole other gathering. I'm thankful.”
Sanders spoke in detail about the bladder-control issues that are common in people who have undergone similar surgeries.
“We’re going through [some] trials and tribulations,” he said. “I'm making a joke out of it. But it's real. So if you see Porta Potty on the sideline, it's real. I'm just telling you right now, you're gonna see it.”
He quipped about “depending on Depends,” in reference to the adult diaper maker, even teasing products he’s working on with the company.
Monday's news conference came about 14 hours after Sanders alluded to a health scare in a cryptic video posted to social media.
“Last night was tough, yesterday was tough, because I had to make a will,” Sanders says in the video. “That’s not easy at all to think that you may not be here. But you want to make sure everybody’s [taken care of].”
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